Photo-Free Update

Thank God! Because the cuteness! The sunshine! The interminable upload times!

For the record, however:

-I have not slept more than four hours at night for ten nights in a row, now. If it’s not the baby, it’s Kyle having a nightmare (There’s a spider on my hand!” I can’t blame him for that one.) or the weird beeping sound that reverberates through my neighborhood, or the coughing – oh! the coughing, as my body tries to expel the goo, or the simple Awakeness that won’t bless me during the day. I’m like a newborn baby with my days and nights mixed up. Except nobody is cuddling me or feeding me or cleaning up after me.

-Brady has two sounds that he uses to communicate directly with us. “Da-da” and a funny little clicking sound. He knows that if he makes these sounds we will make them back. It’s so amazing to watch that awareness dawning in his eyes.

-Brady is this close to crawling. He does a pushup, he rolls over, he army crawls…anything to get to his destination, which is usually a tiny unidentified piece of schmutz on the floor that he wants to put into his mouth.

-Speaking of putting things in mouths – Brady loves the Gerber veggie puffs and is very talented at shoving them into his mouth. He still uses “the rake” – a motion not unlike that Claw game that you can put a quarter into and direct the claw to grab a stuffed animal. His claw comes out, clutches, and shoves whatever is in it into his mouth. Sometimes there’s nothing in it. Good thing he is not coin-operated, because he does this all day.

-Also, yesterday as we were snuggling in bed to try to nap, Brady was playing with my face. You know, that charming baby thing in which the baby takes his Claw and uses it to clutch the things on your face. Like your eyes, nose, and lips. I cheerfully started to say “Da-da!” and at that very moment, Brady shoved his little hand into my mouth, causing my teeth to clamp down on his little fingers. He shouted and carried on for a good ten minutes. I felt bad, but hey, he’s the one who tried to pull out my tongue.

-Kyle continues to assert his independence and push boundaries. Those are the nice ways to say “Kyle is being a little sh*t.” I won’t go into it, because that’s just not nice. At least he still has plenty of moments of innocent grace that melt my heart.

-This morning, out of fatigue or carelessness or whatever, I stabbed myself in the chin with my thumbnail. I have an owie. It is quite attractive. My first thought was “oh great, just in time for holiday pictures,” but let’s face it – we only take pictures of the kids anyway. I may take a picture just for you.